Rupert Murdoch

"Can we change the world? No, but, hell, we can all try." -Rupert Murdoch

We’ve seen some stunning collapses in our day (the image of a bald Britney won’t soon escape us), but there’s perhaps been no fall swifter or more shocking than that of media baron Rupert Murdoch. The News Corporation chairman has been embroiled in one of the biggest media scandals in history after it was revealed that reporters from his now-defunct British tabloid News of The World engaged in illegal phone hacking practices that targeted British politicians, celebrities and, most regrettably, the family of a 13-year-old murder victim. How Murdoch will emerge from this mess is anyone’s guess, but his $12 billion bid to purchase broadcaster BSkyB has already been abandoned after being condemned by British Parliament, and criminal charges may soon follow. Some comeback advice for Murdoch: Grow your hair out and hook up with Ke$ha. Hey, it worked for Britney.

MAGNETISM

Rupert Murdoch is 80 years old, and we’re not going to skate around the fact that he looks it, just because he can have our entire family annihilated with one phone call (please don’t annihilate our family, sir!). But Wendi Deng, a Chinese-born Yale grad, doesn’t seem to mind. Deng -- who was just 30 when she became the media mogul’s third wife -- is now the vice-president of Star TV, one of the biggest networks in Asia, and is the mother of two of Murdoch's six children.

SUCCESS

In 2010, Forbes ranked the chairman and CEO of News Corporation as the 117th richest person in the world, with a net worth of $6.2 billion. Rupert Murdoch’s list of assets reads longer than most novellas, and his influence touches all four corners of the earth. Some of the more notable holdings under the News Corporation umbrella include: 20th Century FOX, FOX News Channel, Dow Jones Company, HarperCollins, and a whole swath of newspapers including The Sun, New York Post and The Wall Street Journal. Despite being regarded in some circles as dishonest and unprincipled, Murdoch is still recognized as a tireless worker, an innovative thinker and a shrewd businessman. But the phone-hacking scandal -- which may go down as the single, biggest press scandal of our time -- is destined to tarnish Murdoch’s legacy.

Rupert Murdoch's other assets include TV Guide, the SPEED Channel, HarperCollins publishing, 20th Century FOX Studios, FOX Interactive Media, DirectTV, the Los Angeles Kings hockey team, and 50% of the National Rugby League. Rupert's empire covers most of the planet, and he owns businesses that service every continent except Antarctica (if he gets his way, he'll be the first mogul to make inroads into that region as well).

Rupert Murdoch Biography

Though Rupert Murdoch often gets credit for building his media empire from the ground up, he didn’t exactly grow up with holes in his shoes. Keith Rupert Murdoch was born in Melbourne, Australia, where his father Keith was a local newspaper baron. The family’s wealth allowed Murdoch to attend prestigious schools like the elite Geelong Grammar School and Oxford University’s Worcester College, where he studied philosophy, politics and economics. After his years as a student, Murdoch’s father guided his son’s early career, which included a brief stint at the UK’s Daily Express. But when Murdoch was 22, his father died, and he returned to Melbourne to take the reins of his father’s crumbling newspaper the Adelaide News. Murdoch used his business savvy to quickly turn the paper around and would use it as the jumping off point for his global media empire.

rupert murdoch begins his world domination

As managing director of News Limited, Rupert Murdoch wasted no time expanding his company, acquiring a stable of suburban and provincial newspapers throughout Australia, including Perth’s Sunday Times and Sydney’s the Daily Mirror and the Daily Telegraph. Murdoch also established Australia’s first national newspaper, The Australian, which solidified his position as a legitimate publisher, and strengthened his growing political influence. Murdoch’s first real showing of said influence was when he backed the Australian Labour Party in the 1972 election, helping the Gough Whitlam-led party soar into office. But it certainly wasn’t the last, as Murdoch would make a career of influencing politics -- specifically in the UK -- often to controversial results.

rupert murdoch and the rise of news corporation

Not content with controlling Australia’s print-media landscape, Rupert Murdoch set his sights on the United Kingdom. In 1968, Murdoch acquired the News of The World, followed by The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times. Though no one could deny Murdoch’s keen business acumen, his journalistic integrity was repeatedly called into question, thanks to a series of questionable decisions like turning The Sun into a straight-up tabloid (the introduction of the Page Three "stunnas" was particularly reviled) that published sensationalist, button-pushing stories, usually about the private lives of celebrities. By the same token, The Sun quickly became the UK's most widely-read daily paper, and Murdoch, who had earned the nickname “The Dirty Digger” and expanded overseas with the purchases of the New York Post and New York magazine, was quickly becoming one of the most powerful men in the world.

rupert murdoch pushes his political agenda

Today Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is one of the largest the world has ever known. Along with all the properties owned by News Corp. internationally, he also controls FOX, The Wall Street Journal, 20th Century FOX, and the New York Post, stateside. But aside from FOX News, which Murdoch uses to push his conservative agenda, his political influence in the United States is limited, especially in comparison to the UK, where Murdoch has been a major political player since forming a close alliance with Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. He’s made a point of developing a close relationship with all of Britain’s Prime Ministers over the years, including John Major, Tony Blair and, most recently, David Cameron. Murdoch has also been known to host private meetings with top world leaders including Barack Obama and Stephen Harper.

rupert murdoch and the scandal that rocked the world

Only weeks ago, Rupert Murdoch was set to win his $12 billion bid to assume full control of BSkyB, Britain’s largest satellite broadcaster. Today, thanks to the phone-hacking scandal that rocked the world and sunk the 168 year-old News of The World, Murdoch’s bid has been dropped. Although Murdoch’s companies have given us such cultural delights as The Simpsons, Titanic and Glee, News Corp. has long been considered one of the most unprincipled and corrupt media empires ever. Murdoch has been accused of degrading the hallowed craft of journalism by ushering in the tabloid era, using his many media institutions (he owns 150 newspapers in Australia alone) to manipulate politicians for his own gain, and engaging in unlawful business practices, like when he moved his production facilities from Fleet Street to a non-union plant in Wapping, in what became know as “the biggest union-busting operation in history.”

But none of that can come close to the increasingly sordid details that continue to emerge from this latest scandal, which accuses staff from Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of The World of hacking the phones of celebrities, politicians, Milly Dowler, a murdered 13-year-old girl, and the families of the veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Whether or not the scandal will trickle into the United States remains to be seen.